Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments of the day:
- Boris Johnson is facing mounting calls for a confidence vote in his leadership that could put his position under threat within days, as two more MPs suggested they had lost faith in the government. Here’s a full list of the Conservatives who have sent a letter of no confidence, publicly urged the PM to quit or criticised his leadership.
- The former minister Andrea Leadsom has criticised Boris Johnson’s “unacceptable failings of leadership” following the publication of the Sue Gray report. In a letter to her constituents, published on social media, Leadsom said she believed it was “extremely unlikely that senior leaders were unaware of what was going on”.
- The former foreign secretary William Hague has said the prime minister is “in real trouble” and that Tory MPs are “moving towards having a ballot” on his leadership. Allies of Boris Johnson had been hopeful he had escaped unscathed but Lord Hague said it was proving to be “one of those sort of slow-fuse explosions in politics”.
- Boris Johnson “didn’t stand as the patron saint of virtue” and that “people knew who they were electing” the science minister, George Freeman said. He urged caution among Tory MPs considering submitting letters of no confidence in the prime minister.
- Dominic Cummings has accused Sue Gray of not properly investigating the alleged “Abba party” in Boris Johnson’s flat during lockdown, saying the music was so loud that dozens of people working in the office downstairs could hear it.
- ITV’s Paul Brand reports there are rumours that the prime minister has begun phoning MPs who have voiced doubts about his leadership and hinting that they could be promoted if they offer him their support.
- Boris Johnson has written to civil servants justifying plans to cut 91,000 jobs, saying the government must reduce its costs “just as many families are doing”. Following the announcement that the civil service’s flagship graduate scheme was to be frozen for at least a year to help reduce head count by 20%, the prime minister tried to assure officials that support would be provided to “anyone affected”.
- Shadow financial secretary to the Treasury James Murray said that the “government hasn’t prepared” for the rise in demand for travel. The Labour MP told Sky News said Labour had been warning there would be problems after the travel sector cut staff during the pandemic and are now struggling to cope with the increased demand.
- Meanwhile, the arts minister, Stephen Parkinson, said the “industry should have been recruiting people ready” for the increased demand for travel. Asked if government could have done more to help the aviation sector during the pandemic, Lord Parkinson told Sky News that the government had helped but put the blame squarely on the travel sector.
- The former children’s commissioner for England has called for free school meals to be extended to all families on universal credit, while acknowledging that poverty has not been tackled in this country “well enough”. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Anne Longfield, who is chairing a year-long commission on young lives, said she had supported the extension of free school meals to all families receiving the benefit for “some time”
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The Tory MPs calling on Boris Johnson to resign – and what they said
Explainer: a full list of the Conservatives who have sent a letter of no confidence, publicly urged the PM to quit or criticised his leadership.
Boris Johnson was warned he would face a string of no-confidence letters after the Sue Gray report into Partygate concluded. In order for a vote of no confidence to be triggered, the chair of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, must receive letters from at least 54 Conservative MPs – 15% of the parliamentary party.
Here is the full list of Tory MPs who have urged the prime minister to stand down or criticised his leadership, though some say they have not written letters to Brady. Several other critical MPs say they will not reveal whether they have sent a letter – so the true number is likely to be higher.
Music from ‘Abba party’ could be heard all over No 10, says Cummings
Dominic Cummings has accused Sue Gray of not properly investigating the alleged “Abba party” in Boris Johnson’s flat during lockdown, saying the music was so loud that dozens of people working in the office downstairs could hear it.
In his first interview since the Partygate inquiry finished last week, the prime minister’s former chief adviser turned arch-critic said the gathering that took place on the night he left No 10 was not a work meeting.
Cummings said Gray’s justification not to properly look into the event was “brazen”, suggesting she turned a blind eye and took a “fuck this” attitude.
In her report, Gray admitted she had just begun collecting evidence about the gathering on 13 November 2020 when the police got involved, and that she decided not to continue when Scotland Yard’s investigation concluded because “it was not appropriate or proportionate”.
In her review of the event, Gray said a meeting was held in the Downing Street flat with five special advisers, which Johnson joined at 8pm, and food and alcohol were provided. It became known as the “Abba party” because the song The Winner Takes It All was reportedly blasted out of the flat, allegedly because Johnson’s wife, Carrie, was celebrating Cummings’ departure.
Carrie Johnson was not mentioned in relation to the event in the Gray report. Over the weekend, her spokesperson did not deny reports that another party was held in the flat earlier in the year, on the prime minister’s birthday.
Some Tory MPs told the Guardian they feared a cover-up when the flat party was not properly investigated.
Speaking to the journalist Suzanne Moore, Cummings said of the Gray team’s decision not to fully investigate the November 2020 flat event that “they have sort of just said: ‘Fuck this, we’re not going to get involved.’”
Recalling his surprise that it had gone unreported for so long, Cummings said:
Because we were in extreme lockdown it got no coverage. The media was so happy that I’d gone, no one wanted to talk about it.
Dozens of people downstairs could hear it, so all the police had to do was interview any one of them to find out. You don’t have a work meeting, at the top of No 10, where the music is so loud that you can hear it in the fucking press office.
Read more here:
Updated
Full story: Boris Johnson writes to civil servants over plans to cut 91,000 jobs
Boris Johnson has written to civil servants justifying plans to cut 91,000 jobs, saying the government must reduce its costs “just as many families are doing”.
Following the announcement that the civil service’s flagship graduate scheme was to be frozen for at least a year to help reduce head count by 20%, the prime minister tried to assure officials that support would be provided to “anyone affected”.
Johnson argued that given Britain had left the European Union and the Covid pandemic was subsiding, “we no longer require the state to have the same colossal presence in people’s lives”.
“We must ensure the cost of government is no greater than absolutely necessary to deliver for the people we serve,” he wrote. “And as many families and businesses now look at how to reduce their costs in a period of higher global inflation, it is right that we do the same.”
Cabinet ministers were told on Monday they had a month to come up with plans for reducing headcounts in their department by up to 20% and that they should “show discipline in your recruitment”.
The Guardian revealed last week that Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had already initiated an effective recruitment freeze and warned redundancies could not be ruled out.
Senior Whitehall sources said they hoped not to have to axe any jobs, but rather fulfil the reduction of 91,000 personnel by hiring fewer people to replace those leaving the civil service.
After it was revealed the graduate scheme, which recruits about 1,500 university-leavers a year, was being paused for at least a year, a Cabinet Office insider dismissed suggestions the scheme had been singled out.
“This is not an exceptional issue,” they said, suggesting ministers wanted to “take advantage of churn in the civil service for a year or two”.
The decision to the graduate scheme was made at a cabinet meeting earlier in May, and then confirmed at a Cabinet Office board meeting on 19 May, chaired by Stephen Barclay, the prime minister’s chief of staff.
Read more from my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Tobi Thomas here:
ITV’s Paul Brand reports there are rumours that the prime minister has begun phoning MPs who have voiced doubts about his leadership and hinting that they could be promoted if they offer him their support.
Word among Conservative MPs is that Boris Johnson has begun calling his critics, hinting at the prospect of promotion and asking in return that they 'stay with me'. Clearly No 10 feel the threat of a confidence vote if those kind of approaches are being made.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) May 31, 2022
Our correspondent Jessica Elgot makes it 46 Tory MPs who have either written a letter of no confidence or suggested the prime minister should stand down. And she notes those are only the ones who have so far gone public.
The threshold number of letters required to trigger a vote of no confidence is 54.
By my count, that makes it 46 MPs who have either confirmed they have written a letter, called for the PM to resign or suggested they would consider their position in same circumstances. Those are only the public ones.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 31, 2022
Minister says PM 'didn’t stand as the patron saint of virtue' and 'people knew who they were electing'
Urging caution among Tory MPs considering submitting letters of no confidence in the prime minister, the science minister, George Freeman, has told the BBC’s World At One that Boris Johnson “didn’t stand as the patron saint of virtue” and that “people knew who they were electing”.
“He got a massive majority,” said Freeman. “Got us out of the Brexit deadlock, delivered the pandemic vaccine programme success, Ukraine, cost of living - £37bn [the projected size of the support package announced this week].
“Before we change prime ministers we need to make sure we’re doing the day job first. We mustn’t be driven by short-term speculation.”
Updated
Boris Johnson apologises to civil servants for 'concern and uncertainty' caused by staff cuts
Boris Johnson has written to civil servants explaining that the government needs “fewer” of them and apologising for the “concern and uncertainty” caused by his plan to reduce staff numbers.
In a message sent to civil servants and seen by the PA news agency, the prime minister outlined how the civil service has grown by 20% since 2016 during “exceptional circumstances”, but that it needs to spend taxpayers’ money “judiciously” and will look to reduce costs in the face of high inflation.
Johnson said:
We no longer require the state to have the same colossal presence in people’s lives. And rolling back the state in turn means we will also need fewer civil servants.
The general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka, said:
The prime minister thanks civil servants in one sentence, tells them their jobs are at risk in the next. He is a disgrace and we call on him to stand down immediately for the good of the country.
Earlier this month, Johnson tasked ministers with cutting about 90,000 civil service jobs – about a fifth of its workforce – to get numbers down to 2016 levels.
Part of his message sent on Tuesday reads:
I profoundly believe that the public service you provide is a great and noble calling, but we must also remember that every penny of it is paid for by the taxpayer. That money is not the government’s money, it’s the people’s money – hard-earned pounds that we share a moral duty to spend judiciously.
So we must ensure the cost of government is no greater than absolutely necessary to deliver for the people we serve. And as many families and businesses now look at how to reduce their costs in a period of higher global inflation, it is right that we do the same.
That is why I have asked my ministerial team and permanent secretaries to develop proposals to return the civil service to the size it was in 2016.
I know that this will cause concern and uncertainty and I am sorry for that. It is why I want us to complete this work swiftly and to provide every possible support to anyone affected by the changes that follow.
Even with these changes, we are retaining a very substantial civil service – as we had in 2016 – and we are taking forward an exciting programme of modernisation that will create better jobs.
The general secretary of the Prospect union, Mike Clancy, said there would be “deep anger” among members “that the prime minister seems to be giving them a slap on the back while saying one in five of their jobs will go”.
He continued:
And, beyond worrying about their jobs, staff also face a cost of living crisis which this prime minister has done nothing but deepen.
These massive cuts to public services will do immeasurable damage to the public services we all rely on. It is time for the government to step back and drop these reckless plans.
Updated
Andrea Thorpe, the chairman of Maidstone and the Weald Conservative Association, said: “I do think we need firm leadership, a firmer leadership now.”
She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme:
My position is very changeable. Last week I thought he [Boris Johnson] has got to stay. This week, having spoken to many constituents here, a lot of people are just waiting for the letters to pile into Sir Graham Brady’s inbox and I think the damage has been done.
She added:
But there’s more to it than Partygate now. It’s the cost of living; it’s the fact that we’ve still got the national insurance rise; we’ve still got VAT on fuel. All of these, these aren’t Conservative values and we’re not getting lower taxes; we’re just in this state of, the whole country seems to, the police aren’t working, the NHS isn’t working and I think that’s the general feeling I’m getting.
Updated
Tory MP John Stevenson submits letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson
John Stevenson says he has submitted a letter of no confidence in the prime minister, and that he is “deeply disappointed” in revelations about the parties and events during lockdown.
A statement by the Tory MP has been shared on Twitter by ITV’s Tom Sheldrick.
In the statement, Stevenson says he called for Boris Johnson to put himself forward for a vote of confidence as a way to “draw the line under all the recent issues”.
He said:
The continuing criticism, revelations and questionsare debilitating for the government at a time when there are so many other important and critical issues to be addressed.
The MP for Carlisle concluded:
Sadly, the prime minister appears unwilling to bring matters to a head and submit himself to such a vote. Therefore, the only option is for the Conservative MPs to facilitate a vote of confidence. I have already taken the appropriate action.
BREAKING: Carlisle Conservative MP John Stevenson (@John4Carlisle) says he has submitted a letter of no confidence in Prime Minister @BorisJohnson pic.twitter.com/AT5VMs0oYR
— Tom Sheldrick (@TomSheldrickITV) May 31, 2022
Updated
The UK civil service has paused its flagship graduate scheme for at least a year in order to reduce its number of staff.
The scheme, known as the civil service fast stream, will not run in 2023 as it has in previous years. The decision was made at a Cabinet Office board meeting on 19 May, chaired by Stephen Barclay, the prime minister’s chief of staff.
The move comes after the government said it wanted to cut 91,000 civil service roles to save money.
The civil service fast stream is made up of 15 individual schemes, and graduates with a minimum degree result of 2:2 are able to apply.
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, sent a letter to civil servants in which he acknowledged that although the job cuts would be “challenging”, civil service staffing levels had risen significantly since 2016, partly due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2016 the state employed the fewest civil servants since the second world war, 384,000, but due to Brexit that number rose to 475,000 at the end of 2021.
The government also said it had not completely ruled out a recruitment freeze or compulsory redundancies to reduce staffing levels. However, the decision to pause the civil service fast stream has faced criticism.
Alex Thomas, a programme director at the Institute for Government thinktank, said:
Pausing the fast stream as a way for the civil service to bring in new talent from different backgrounds risks cutting off the supply of people who have the digital and project management skills to improve public services.
Focusing on headcount reductions rather than budget savings can create perverse incentives, skewing towards losing the cheaper and younger talent rather than making bigger efficiencies elsewhere.
Read more here:
Updated
My colleague Jessica Elgot has been sent another example of a Tory MP being openly critical of Boris Johnson but falling short of calling for his resignation.
In a letter to a constituent West Cornwall’s MP Derek Thomas says he doubts the prime minister can restore trust and suggests he misled MPs but then doesn’t say he should go.
Another intriguing email to constituents - from West Cornwall's MP Derek Thomas. Says he doubts the PM can restore trust, suggests he misled MPs but then doesn't say he should go. Starting to get a pattern of MPs being critical but just... leaving it hanging. pic.twitter.com/ni1V5iP9yx
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 31, 2022
George Grylls of the Times has put together a thread of Tory MPs who have been critical of Boris Johnson but who have “gone under the radar – showing [the] breadth of dissent”.
In a letter to a constituent, Andrew Selous said:
I have no power over whether anyone else chooses to resign. I do advocate strongly for high standards in public life, standards which I try to adhere to myself.
A selection of five other critical Tory MPs who have gone under radar - showing breadth of dissent.
— George Grylls (@georgegrylls) May 31, 2022
Andrew Selous: “I have no power over whether anyone else chooses to resign. I do advocate strongly for high standards in public life, standards which I try to adhere to myself.” pic.twitter.com/9hekNDILSW
John Lamont, meanwhile, has described reading about the parties in Downing Street during lockdown as “sickening” and says he awaiting the findings of the House of Commons investigation into potential breaches of the ministerial code.
John Lamont, PPS to Liz Truss, says “no one can be above the law” and said the parties in Number 10 were “sickening”.https://t.co/7bq9Q4bqNS
— George Grylls (@georgegrylls) May 31, 2022
Kate Griffiths said she “remains angry about the actions of the prime minister and his senior staff” and says there are still “unanswered questions”.
Kate Griffiths, 2019er, says she is considering her position because she remains “angry about the actions of the prime minister and his senior staff”. pic.twitter.com/rfhUM68zxm
— George Grylls (@georgegrylls) May 31, 2022
In his column for his local paper The Kidderminster Shuttle, Mark Garnier said of reading the Sue Grey report and seeing the leaked photographs of the event:
I can’t pretend to say that this looks anything other than awful. The stories become more lurid by the day, and some question the probity of the Met and how their view on what happened seems to differ from what appears in released photographs.
Mark Garnier said the Downing Street parties scandal looked “awful”.
— George Grylls (@georgegrylls) May 31, 2022
“Some question the probity of the Met and how their view on what happened seems to differ from what appears in released photographs,” he says.https://t.co/C8Df12uUJ9
Finally, Andrew Murrison said he was still considering whether or not to put a letter in.
Andrew Murrison said he was still considering whether to put a letter in as the revelations in Gray’s report were “shocking” but did “not materially alter what we already knew or suspected”. pic.twitter.com/esXWNBhMao
— George Grylls (@georgegrylls) May 31, 2022
Updated
The former children’s commissioner for England has called for free school meals to be extended to all families on universal credit, while acknowledging that poverty has not been tackled in this country “well enough”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Anne Longfield, who is chairing a year-long commission on young lives, said she had supported the extension of free school meals to all families receiving the benefit for “some time”, adding that this was something Marcus Rashford and Henry Dimbleby had also called for.
It came as teaching unions have written to the chancellor and education secretary asking for free school meals to be provided for all children from families receiving universal credit in England.
In a letter seen by the BBC, unions and organisations claiming to represent 1 million school staff asked for an urgent expansion of the scheme amid the cost of living crisis. It said vulnerable children not receiving the meals were facing a “real barrier to learning”.
The letter said:
We see the devastating reality of children coming to school unable to afford to buy lunch, because their family circumstances mean they fall outside the restrictive free school meal eligibility criteria.
Longfield said:
[Free school meals for families on universal credit] is something that makes sense in any day. But at the moment we’re in a huge financial turmoil, families are struggling with the huge cost of living increase, so [free school meals] adds certainty.
It means that all children get a nutritious meal, they learn and concentrate better, and it makes a positive difference to their physical health and their time in school.
Longfield said she supported making schools meals free for all primary-age children, as it “takes away the stigma from the young children which would take free school meals”.
She added: “But ultimately this is about tacking poverty, which is something we haven’t done in this country well enough.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
It is “pointless speculating about something unless or until it happens”, the arts minister, Stephen Parkinson, said when asked about the prospect of a confidence vote in the prime minister.
Asked about his experience as Theresa May’s adviser, Lord Parkinson told Sky News:
Well there’s an awful lot of speculation about the numbers of letters that go in and past experience shows, not just then but before, the only person that knows how many letters that have been sent in is the chairman of the 1922 Committee [Sir Graham Brady].
It’s pretty pointless to speculate about the numbers before then, it’s a distraction from the work of government and in government we’re getting on with making sure that we grow the economy to help with the cost of living.
He added: “It’s pointless speculating about something unless or until it happens.”
Asked if the rebellion against Johnson was growing, Parkinson said: “We’ll cross those bridges if and when we come to them.”
He said:
Only Sir Graham Brady knows how many letters are sent and it’s just important that across government we’re focusing on the things that matter, at DCMS that’s the happy news of announcing the new city of culture winner which we’ll be doing this evening.
He added:
Well, the prime minister’s taken responsibility, he’s apologised for what went on in No 10, he’s made some changes to the operation there, so that people can see that a difference is being made and he is redoubling his efforts to focus on the things that matter to people. The cost of living, the war in Ukraine.
It’s for colleagues in the House of Commons to decide what they want to do, in the House of Lords that doesn’t affect us, we don’t write letters to the chairman of the ‘22, but across government everybody is focusing on the things that matter to people, making sure they can get away on their holidays, making sure that there’s help with the rising cost of living, making sure that the economy is growing, that we’re getting people into good jobs, clearing the backlogs in the NHS because of the Coronavirus pandemic and that’s the sort of thing that people want us to be focusing on.
Updated
Bob Neill, Conservative chairman of the justice select committee, spoke of Sue Gray’s “very, very strong condemnation of a failure in leadership both on the civil service side and on the political side”.
The MP for Bromley and Chislehurst told Times Radio:
Now I’m surprised frankly that some senior civil servants in Downing Street are still in post after what was found, but ultimately the political leadership, I’m afraid, stops with the prime minister and the accountability to the public stops with the prime minister.
He spoke of a “very strong feeling of a loss of faith, a loss of trust in the government”, adding: “I think that then feeds through into a sense that the government is unable to move on from this, a sense that there is a degree of drift. Although we’ve done some good things, many worthwhile things, we’re not actually getting a grip of the agenda going forward.”
He added:
That requires, I think, a fresh momentum and it requires real drive and I don’t think that the situation that unfortunately has happened in No 10 leaves the prime minister able to take that initiative.
In the long term, charisma, which the prime minister has, and energy, which he’s shown, isn’t always enough. There has I think also to be a sense of seriousness of purpose and of responsibility and I think the British people are going to expect that, particularly as we are facing some very tough times over the next couple of years. To do that I think we have to get the tone right and optimism has its place, but also seriousness and self discipline and restraint has its place too.
Updated
Full story: Andrea Leadsom criticises 'failures of leadership' in No 10
The former cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom has criticised Boris Johnson’s “failure of leadership” – the latest in a string of senior Tory figures to express doubts about the prime minister’s future.
The former business secretary, who has twice run for the party leadership, stopped short of calling for Johnson to resign but said individual MPs would decide on how best to restore confidence.
In a letter to her constituents, Leadsom said she believed it was “extremely unlikely that senior leaders were unaware of what was going on”.
“I therefore agree with Sue Gray’s conclusions that there have been significant failures of leadership, both political and official, in No 10 and the Cabinet Office,” she wrote.
The MP for South Northamptonshire added: “Each of my Conservative MP colleagues and I must now decide individually on what is the right course of action that will restore confidence in our government.”
On Monday, the first day of the parliamentary recess, four more MPs called on Johnson to resign, including Jeremy Wright, a former attorney general. Several Tory MPs told the Guardian they believed the threshold of 54 letters withdrawing support for Johnson was close to being crossed – or may have been already. This would trigger a secret ballot on whether they still have confidence in the prime minister.
At least 30 MPs have said the prime minister should resign but not all have confirmed they have submitted a letter of no confidence.
Elliot Colburn, a Tory MP with a small majority against the Lib Dems, said he had put in a letter “some time ago”, while Nickie Aiken, the Cities of London and Westminster MP whose council turned Labour this month, called on Johnson to bring an end to the situation by submitting for a vote of confidence. The Tory MP Andrew Bridgen also told constituents he had resubmitted his letter.
On Tuesday the former Tory leader William Hague said the prime minister was in “real trouble” and he believed a confidence vote in Johnson was imminent.
Read more here:
Updated
The former foreign secretary William Hague has said the prime minister is “in real trouble” and that Tory MPs are “moving towards having a ballot” on his leadership.
Allies of Boris Johnson had been hopeful he had escaped unscathed following a relatively muted initial response to Gray’s report last week, PA News reports, but Lord Hague said it was proving to be “one of those sort of slow-fuse explosions in politics”.
He told Times Radio:
It’s still going along. A lot of people misread it really, the events of last week as meaning the trouble is over, Boris is free and that’s actually not the mood in the Conservative party, which is very, very troubled about the contents of that report.
So I think the Conservative party will need to resolve this one way or another, obviously because to be an effective party they either need to rally behind the prime minister they’ve got, or they need to decide to force him out.
I think they’re moving towards either next week or around the end of June, they are moving towards having a ballot, it looks like that.
The former education secretary Justine Greening said the prime minister needed to “get a grip or get out”, adding there was a “real jitteriness” among Conservative MPs.
Greening, who was among 21 pro-Remain rebels thrown out of the party by Johnson and is now no longer an MP, likened Johnson’s position to that of Theresa May when she was under fire from Tory Brexiteers.
She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
There is a real jitteriness around the parliamentary party of following a prime minister who isn’t really setting out a clear plan on necessarily where he wants to lead the country.
We have been here before with Theresa May. The reality is all prime ministers either have to get a grip or get out. That is a political rule that even Boris Johnson will need to follow.”
A steady stream of backbenchers have called on Johnson to go after Gray’s report laid bare a hard-drinking culture at the heart of government while raising renewed claims he misled Parliament.
Under party rules, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, must call a vote of confidence in Johnson’s leadership if 54 Tory MPs – 15% of the parliamentary party – submit a letter calling for one.
So far, more than 25 MPs have publicly called on the prime minister to stand down – although not all of them have said whether they have written to Brady.
However, it is also widely believed in Westminster that a number of others have put in letters without declaring their intentions amid speculation the tally is approaching the total needed to trigger a vote.
Updated
Boris Johnson is back in negative figures in Conservative Home’s cabinet league table, which is a monthly poll of Tory members, that asks about satisfaction with members of the cabinet.
The results show the members are most satisfied with Ben Wallace and least satisfied with the prime minister.
This won’t be good news for Johnson who hopes the grassroots members of the party are still behind him.
Conservative Home's monthly poll of Tory members, out today, rather poo-poos the notion that local associations are still behind Johnson. ~AA pic.twitter.com/Nky2AV00ln
— Best for Britain (@BestForBritain) May 31, 2022
Andrea Leadsom condemns Boris Johnson's 'unacceptable failings of leadership'
The former minister Andrea Leadsom has criticised Boris Johnson’s “unacceptable failings of leadership” following the publication of the Sue Gray report.
In a letter to her constituents, published on social media, Leadsom said she believed it was “extremely unlikely that senior leaders were unaware of what was going on”.
She wrote:
I therefore agree with Sue Gray’s conclusions that there have been significant failures of leadership, both political and official, in No 10 and the Cabinet Office.
The Tory MP for South Northamptonshire added:
Each of my Conservative MP colleagues and I must now decide individually on what the right course of action that will restore confidence in our government.
Leadsom did not call for Johnson to resign in her letter.
NEW: Ex Cab min Andrea Leadsom joins critics of PM 👇🏼
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 31, 2022
“There have been unacceptable failings of leadership that cannot be tolerated and are the responsibility of PM. My colleagues and I must now decide on what is right course of action that will restore confidence in our Govt.” pic.twitter.com/bQcJpfk5kn
Her intervention is a further blow to Johnson as a steady stream of Tory MPs have been calling on the prime minister to stand down in the wake of Gray’s report last week.
A committed Brexiteer, Leadsom backed Johnson for the leadership in 2019 after pulling out of the contest herself, underlining the fact that discontent with the prime minister extends across the party.
Updated
Full story: Travel firms should have been ready for post-Covid surge, UK minister says
The travel industry should have been better prepared for a surge in post-pandemic holidays, a government minister has said, after scenes of travel chaos in airports before the half-term break.
The arts minister, Stephen Parkinson, a former adviser to Theresa May, said the disruption was causing “a lot of distress” for people who had not been able to get away for several years because of the pandemic.
Flight cancellations have led to many passengers facing long delays to their half-term breaks. EasyJet has cancelled more than 200 flights to and from Gatwick between 28 May and 6 June. The airline’s Twitter feed has been referring dozens of stranded Gatwick passengers to its disruption help webpage.
Tui also made several last-minute cancellations including from Gatwick, Birmingham and Bristol, blaming “operational and supply chain issues”.
Airports are under particular pressure because of the widespread use of travel vouchers from previously cancelled holidays, and this week will be the first school holidays in England and Wales since the lifting of all UK Covid travel restrictions.
The chief executive of the Airline Management Group, Peter Davies, said the industry was likely to be reluctant to spend money to tackle the bottlenecks faced by passengers.
He said:
When you’ve got thousands of people arriving at Heathrow at seven o’clock in the morning, and that’s been happening for years, where you’ve got a lot of people arriving on overnight flights, then you should gear yourself up to make sure you can handle those people.
But of course that costs money and it costs space, and people are reluctant often to do that.
Lord Parkinson said that airlines and airports had been urged by the government to hire more staff to cope with demand.
He told Sky News:
Colleagues in the Department for Transport are working with the industry, we have been for months urging them to make sure they’ve got enough staff so that thanks to the success of the vaccine rollout, as people are able to travel again, people can take the holidays that they’ve missed and that they’ve deserved,” he told Sky News.
Of course it’s causing a lot of distress for people, particularly in half-term, people with family and children with them.
It’s very distressing if you turn up at the airport and your flight isn’t ready, so we’ve been saying to the industry that they need to prepare for this: they need to have the staff that they need to make sure people can get away and enjoy holidays.
Read more here:
Sunak’s UK oil subsidy could have insulated 2m homes, says thinktank
Billions of pounds given away in a tax break for UK oil and gas exploitation could have permanently cut the energy bills of 2m homes by £342 a year if invested in insulation measures, according to a green thinktank.
Rishi Sunak announced the 91% tax break alongside a windfall tax on the huge profits of oil and gas companies last week. The E3G thinktank calculated that the tax break would hand between £2.5bn and £5.7bn back to the oil companies over three years, while an energy efficiency programme of £3bn over the same period would upgrade 2.1m homes making them less reliant on gas.
Soaring international gas prices are expected to more than double energy bills in a year by October, pushing a third of households into fuel poverty. Proponents of energy efficiency, including loft and wall insulation, say it is a no-regrets investment that cuts bills for good, slashes the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis and boosts jobs. Green groups said the chancellor’s grants to households partly funded by the windfall tax were only a “sticking plaster”.
Another report published on Tuesday by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) found that a £4bn annual investment in energy efficiency could permanently halve heating bills for households by 2035. Its author said Sunak was handing out “raincoats” but “failing to fix the roof”.
The tax reduction meets official definitions of a fossil fuel subsidy, which the UK and other countries had pledged to phase out. It incentivises new oil and gas production, despite a recent Guardian investigation finding that the fossil fuel industry is already planning projects that would blow the world’s chances of maintaining a liveable climate.
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The aviation sector is reluctant to “gear up” for thousands of people arriving because of the increased costs, the chief executive of the Airline Management Group has said.
Asked what the industry can do to cope with demand, Peter Davies told LBC:
Well, they have to gear up as quickly as possible in terms of staff, particularly through the airports with security.
However, he said they is a reluctance to increase staff numbers.
When you’ve got thousands of people arriving at Heathrow at seven o’clock in the morning, and that’s been happening for years, where you got a lot of people arriving on overnight flights, then you should gear yourself up to make sure you can handle those people.
But of course that costs money and it costs space, and people are reluctant often to do that.
The arts minister, Stephen Parkinson, said the “industry should have been recruiting people ready” for the increased demand for travel.
Asked if government could have done more to help the aviation sector during the pandemic, Lord Parkinson told Sky News that the government had helped but put the blame squarely on the travel sector not recruiting enough people ready for its busiest season now restrictions have lifted.
He said:
We’ve been helping people across the whole economy with support for jobs, but of course the pandemic hit lots of sectors in lots of different ways.
There was a period when people just simply weren’t able to travel for obvious reasons, but there’s been many months where we’ve been back on track, particularly since the vaccination to this moment and the industry should have been recruiting people ready.
The companies should have had the people in place and we’re working with colleagues in the department for transport to make sure that they can get people in as swiftly as possible.
He added: “We need clear communication from the companies to the people that are travelling, and colleagues at the Department for Transport are working with the industry to make sure they’re getting people in as swiftly as they can.”
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Government 'not prepared' for increased travel
Shadow financial secretary to the Treasury James Murray said that the “government hasn’t prepared” for the rise in demand for travel.
The Labour MP told Sky News said Labour had been warning there would be problems after the travel sector cut staff during the pandemic and are now struggling to cope with the increased demand.
He said:
We’ve been warning for months throughout the Covid pandemic that you can’t just let the airline industry and airports fall over, let them shed all of their staff, and then expect to get back on track when demand comes back after the pandemic.
We were warning about this, trade unions were warning about this, employee representatives were saying throughout the Covid pandemic ‘You need a sector-specific package to support the aviation sector’, and now we’re seeing what’s happened because the government hasn’t prepared for what would obviously come next.
He added: “The government was not working with the airlines to get that sector-specific package in place during the pandemic.”
Murray argued that the government “didn’t step up” and now people are seeing the impact of that as people’s holidays are impacted.
He said:
It felt fairly obvious what was happening during the pandemic in that people were not travelling, were not flying throughout the pandemic, but then, once the pandemic starts to recede, air travel would start to pick up again and the government simply didn’t do what was necessary during the pandemic to get ready for what’s happening now, and now we’re seeing the impact of it.
He added that there had been added chaos because of the problems people are facing trying to apply for passports or renew their passports, which Murray says was also something that should have been predicted ahead of time and planned for.
He said:
The other aspect of this as well, and not to forget, is all of the chaos in terms of passports and the fact that that was predictable as well... It’s something where a bit of common sense, a bit of planning... if the government had had their mind focused on what was coming they could have prepared for this.
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